


Somewhere in the Dark

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: A little bit of fluff, Angst, Connor dies a lot, M/M, Nightmares, One Shot, Soft Gavin Reed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 04:34:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16947087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Connor tries to recover from all of his deaths, but they present themselves in his real life as fears he has trouble overcoming. Gavin tries his best to help, unfortunately things aren't always that simple.





	Somewhere in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> "You will die, somewhere in the dark, between the stars."  
> Illuminae - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

The Phillip’s Residence

It’s his time to prove his worth, show his best. The mission is placed in his hands and he is pushed outside of the elevator doors and shown to a world of guts and gore and guns and glass. Dead bodies, rifles aimed high, a crack in the window.

The little girl shrieks and cries and he does his best to calm Daniel down but it isn’t enough. He is meant to be programmed to do this properly. To understand exactly what a person is feeling and how to calm them down. But Daniel isn’t a person. He’s a deviant. He’s a broken machine and Connor has never done this before.

_It should be easy._

But Connor is like a human with nerves. _Performance anxiety._

And he fails.

The girl— _Emma—_ lives, she falls onto the concrete beside the pool and screams and it echoes on his way down and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the spinning stars and watch as he gets closer and closer to his end.

He succeeds in the mission, but he _fails._

 

_September 17 th, 2040_

Connor is only invited because he’s friends with Tina.

Barely, but enough that she wants him here. They don’t talk outside of work, but they interact enough during that he has heard her casually refer to him as a friend. And that makes him happy. Superbly so. He doesn’t have many friends. Hank is wonderful and Sumo is fantastic but they aren’t capable of entirely erasing the loneliness that resides inside of his chest.

The loneliness isn’t the problem with this party, though.

It’s that it’s on a rooftop of Gavin Reed’s apartment building.

And _Gavin Reed_ isn’t the problem, either.

He’s too high up. He can see too much of the city. He can feel the wind and all it reminds him of is shattered glass and the sounds of guns firing and the grotesque look of dead bodies. He can almost feel the bullet hitting his arm again. Where it made a cut through his fabric and splattered Thirium against the windows.

If he still had that body, he would have a scar there. But he doesn’t.

“Connor?”

He looks over to the voice, finding Gavin a few feet away. The two of them have reconciled in the only way they know how: ignore, ignore, _ignore._ It has worked out for them. Gavin sometimes even smiles at Connor, and Connor doesn’t feel like he’s being threatened with murder when their paths cross.

Which has led him into a very stupid predicament.

Because Gavin Reed is _cute_ and when he ignores what happened between them, they are almost a possibility.

_Almost_.

Gavin still hates androids.

And Connor still associates him with violence he’d rather pretend never happened at all. But it’s impossible to completely ignore it.

He still wakes up screaming sometimes.

So maybe _Gavin Reed_ is part of the problem.

“Tina invited me,” he says, before Gavin can start his interrogation on why he’s here. But the avoidance of confrontation is what made them last this long. He doubts that unspoken rule is going to be broken at their mutual friend’s birthday party.

_Mutual friend._

He is putting himself in a dangerous situation by pretending that Tina is his _friend_ and not his nice co-worker. She might call him such but that doesn’t make it true. He knows how much easier it is to describe an acquaintance as a friend than get into the details of the precise nature of the relationship at hand.

“I didn’t—” Gavin pauses. “You seemed… weird, over here by yourself.”

“Weird?”

“You keep looking out there,” he says, pausing to point towards the skyline. “But not like a hu—like someone enjoying the view would.”

_Good save._

“I don’t particularly like heights,” he says, and he doesn’t lie because he doesn’t really know what the point would be. Maybe some day Gavin will throw him over the edge of a building or torture him by holding him at the edge.

But he doesn’t think Gavin would do either of those things, even if he does hate androids.

He watches Gavin think for a minute. A few different thoughts cycling through his head that have already cycled through Connor’s. Like finding Tina and talking to her—but they aren’t close enough that he would steal her the entire night to keep his fear at bay. Or, maybe mingling with the crowd and meet new people, find new friends—but they aren’t really here to talk to _Connor,_ they’re here for Tina. And he could just leave, but how inconsiderate would that be? His first time seeing Tina outside of work and he disappears because of a _phobia?_ A phobia that he still doesn’t want to label as a real thing because _phobias_ are so stupid and irrational and machines are supposed to be _rational_ and _logical._

But he isn’t really just a machine anymore, is he?

And there is a terrible aspect of fear he was never told before. It is incredibly difficult to separate oneself from a scary situation because of the most minor things. Before, he would have never felt the _fight-or-flight_ problem. And now?

He freezes.

He can’t do anything.

He is _useless._

“You want a distraction?” Gavin settles on.

Connor looks over every little detail on his face. Every micro expression and every wrinkle and every tiny scar that have just about faded.

He’s being genuine.

Still, Connor hesitates before he gives him a tentative nod. _Yes, please, please please._

“Okay…” another sigh, a turn back towards the crowd. “You see that guy in the blue and green shirt? I used to date him. A real nice guy. Wonderful.”

“Why’d you break up?” he says, but Connor barely follows his gaze to find the man, as if when he looks away from the city he will suddenly be right next to the ledge and the railing will disappear and he’ll fall over into the street. His eyes are keeping him safe. The words aren’t. The party isn’t.

“We didn’t get along very well. Too different. Stayed friends though.”

“Is it awkward?”

“Not anymore—hey,” he says, and Connor gives him a small glance to see that Gavin is looking at him again. “Don’t look over there. Look at them.”

“I—”

Gavin reaches out and grasps his hand. It is so quick and sudden and their fingers are threaded together so tight that it seems like they should have been holding hands this entire time.

“Look at them, alright? I’m not gonna let you fall. People would never believe it was an accident.”

He says it as a joke, but Connor can’t really laugh, and he can tell by his features that isn’t joking at all. He’s not going to let Connor fall.

And, people probably wouldn’t believe it was an accident either.

But it helps. Being grounded here. A solid weight to be tied to. He listens to Gavin speak and watches him point out people in the crowd— _pink skirt, blue hat, guy with the obviously fake blond hair, tutu girl—_ it helps. The words aren’t keeping him safe. The party isn’t. Gavin’s hand in his own—

It is.

It’s the only thing that feels safe right now.

 

_September 18 th, 2040_

He likes to walk Sumo for Hank. There is something comforting about the cool air of the outdoors and the dead streets of Hank’s neighborhood. He could walk Sumo around the block for hours, and sometimes he does.

No cars. No traffic. An occasional jogger or someone else walking their dog or just someone wandering the streets with a friend or family member.

The sounds of the city are quiet and muffled here, and he is wrapped with the warm breeze of summer and his thoughts keep wandering to the night before.

Gavin’s hand in his.

How _comforting_ it felt.

He doesn’t like Gavin Reed. Gavin is still overly mean and standoffish and they have never once managed to have a conversation outside of the context of work.

Until last night. Until Gavin wasn’t mean, until he stood close to Connor, until he held his hand and kept him anchored to the rooftop instead of feeling like a balloon that would be taken away by the slightest bit of wind.

_Last night—_

He didn’t forget his fear of heights. He didn’t stop thinking about how easy it would be to fall over. He didn’t lose his memory of hitting pavement and breaking apart. But he did talk to Gavin. He smiled and he laughed and he was able to say something beyond paperwork and murder.

It was _nice._

And it felt like something he had been missing out on.

 

The Interrogation Room

_Androids don’t feel pain._

And yet—

When the bullet enters his skull and he collapses against the floor, there is a split second that he thinks he might.

 

_September 24 th, 2040_

“Are you coming?”

Connor looks up from the stack of files and papers on Gavin’s desk, finding his face and trying to remember what they were talking about. He had been avoiding this moment for a while—interrogating the only three people present at the time of the murder.

He doesn’t want to go back in that room.

He had, while waiting for Hank a little less than two years ago. He had seen the way the Thirium hadn’t been fully cleaned from the desk or the walls. If he looked, he could see the splatter of blue against the tile. His own curiosity had gotten the best of him.

And now he doesn’t want to go back.

And he’s done a good job at avoiding it. They aren’t going to make him interrogate anyone—especially since he failed so spectacularly the first time.

“Connor?”

“I…” he trails off, looking over to Hank, who fought to let him stay. To Fowler who agreed reluctantly to it. “I don’t want to talk to them.”

“You don’t have to.”

But he should be in the room. He should be present. He should be doing his part.

Connor lets out a sigh, nods slowly as he stands up and follows Gavin towards the room. Tina will be interrogating the first one. A woman in her forties with as much of a motive as the rest of them.

They move to the back of the room, Chris and Ben already sitting in the chairs, watching Tina enter from the other side.

It’s weird working this closely with Gavin. _Detective Reed._ He should refer to him as _Detective Reed._ It is better to keep a barrier between them. They ignore what happened to at least have a functional work environment. That doesn’t make them friends. That doesn’t give Connor the right to call him by his first name.

But he remembers how it felt when Gavin held his hand and he remembers how it felt when Gavin punched him in the abdomen. They are two absolutely devastatingly contradictory things.

Tina is asking the suspect questions. What happened when she first arrived. What she remembers when the party started. What her version of events are that led over half of the attendees to leave and how the body was discovered.

His thoughts are not on her answers. They are not on Tina’s precisely worded questions. They are stuck on the space on the table he knows the Thirium splattered against when the HK400 hit his head repeatedly, or the space on the wall where he turned the gun against himself.

And he knows around the corner, where he can’t quite see, is the remnants of his death. _Shattered machinery._ Crackling and wrong and Thirium spilled across his broken face.

Something touches his hand and looks down quickly to where Gavin’s fingers brush against his. A light touch. Likely accidental.

But when he looks up and meets Gavin’s gaze he knows it’s not and he doesn’t need words to know what Gavin is asking.

_Are you okay?_

No. He is not okay.

He’s sure that is written as plain as it possibly could be on his features. Marring them and twisting them beyond recognition. He thought he could handle this if he was on the other side of the glass. He thought he would be _okay_.

He is always, always wrong.

And—

He is consistently proven again and again.

Gavin’s hand moves slowly, lacing with his carefully, holding on gently before giving a soft squeeze. Connor hadn’t realized his hands had been shaking until now, until the trembling was forced to a stop.

It somehow makes it worse.

_The contradiction._ The reminder that Gavin tried to kill him once. That there was a gun pointed at his head three times. That he was punched in the stomach.

He is so different now from then.

Still—

He squeezes Gavin’s hand back.

A silent _thank you_ past between them.

 

_September 30 th, 2040_

He wakes up thinking about Gavin Reed. His Thirium regulator is beating too fast. His lungs are heaving in air and his hands feel like they have gone numb and all he can think about is how much he wants someone to hold them, to still his fingers and remind him that they exist. That they are his.

The darkness in between life and death is soul crushing and monstrous and a weight that he still carries somewhere hidden in the back of his chest. Just behind his ribs, tangled around his heart. Like thorns—sharp edges that spill blood easily.

Connor wants someone to hold his hands and he knows exactly who he wants that person to be.

But he doesn’t want to admit it.

His hands ache and his stomach aches and his entire body _aches_ with the reminder of all the bodies that have been destroyed before this one.

 

The Highway

Cars are just objects. Metal and glass and leather and nothing more. Engines and wheels and sturdy and solid and enough that if he isn’t fast enough, they could crush and destroy him. And they do. He doesn’t shut down on the first impact. That would be too gracious of a function in his system.

But his body is made to try and cling onto life. Hold on for as long as possible in the case someone might be able to repair the damage and they wouldn’t have to waste money making a new model to replace him with or the time it would take to upload every byte of data he could manage. But he is just a prototype, and he cracks easy underneath the weight of the vehicles again and again.

He made a stupid mistake.

He could have run faster.

And he didn’t.

 

_December 17 th, 2040_

He doesn’t like it. The cars. The people. The lights. It’s all too much. The vehicles are driving too fast and the snow is coming down too heavily. Almost like a blizzard. The road conditions are bad. Anything could happen. A car could slide off the road and kill everyone waiting for the light to change. The semi could lose control and flatten them all. He can hear the sound of metal crunching and plastic breaking in his ears as if it’s happening and—

“Connor?”

He breathes in a quick breath. So sharp it nearly hurts. Unnecessary but wanted. Breathing is such a helpful action that he never considered before. He did it to seem more human to people like Hank and Gavin, but it ended with being a repetitive action he could focus on when he can’t fiddle with his coin as much as he’d like to.

“What?”

“You look like you’re freaking the fuck out.”

He is. He can’t calm himself down. He wants to go back through his memories and delete every death and every piece of pain he has ever felt. He wants a clean slate. He wants to be able to look at Gavin and not think about the fist to his stomach or the gun aimed at his head.

_Three times._

Three times Gavin aimed a gun at his head.

“I’m fine,” he says, but he can’t keep his eyes off the road. Off the cars zooming past them all too fast. _Slow down. Slow down. Slow down—_

“I can help—”

“I don’t…” he trails off, because he doesn’t want to say it. _I don’t need your help._ He does. He needs it. He wants it. Connor is unsure if _need_ or _want_ is the more surprising factor of this.

He can still remember how nice Gavin’s hand in his felt. The anchoring to reality. That would help him so little now. It would do such little good. Being held in place while things move so quickly beside him. He doesn’t have a fear of accidentally stepping over like the rooftop. He has a fear of the drivers turning their wheels towards them as if they’re focusing in on killing specifically an RK800 android.

“Fine,” he settles on, breathing it out as a whisper. “Distract me.”

Gavin hesitates at his side for a moment. The two of them are at the back of the small crowd waiting for the pedestrian’s light to change. Off to the side, but still too close to the road. Anywhere outside is too close to a road.

“I—” he starts, pauses. Like he’s searching for what he can ramble about now like he did on the roof of his apartments. There’s no one to point to. No story to unwind from the past. Nothing. “It doesn’t mean anything, alright?”

“What doesn’t?”

“Just…” Gavin heaves out an annoyed sigh, turning to face him a little more, stepping a little closer. “It’s just a distraction, alright? It doesn’t mean anything.”

He starts to ask again, to question what Gavin means, but Gavin is faster than his ability to come up with another phrased question of _what do you mean?_

And Gavin’s hand is on the side of his face, moving to his neck, winding around the back of his head before pulling him down a tiny bit. It isn’t a sudden kiss. The action of the two of them touching is. That’s what freezes his brain up. The closeness and the warmth and the contact.

The kiss itself seems to arrive slowly. Like Gavin is giving him time to break it off and push him away so it doesn’t happen.

He almost does.

_This is his first kiss._

Gavin is not the worst choice.

However, he might be among them.

Still.

Connor lets Gavin kiss him. Soft and sweet and drawn out.

And it is a very good distraction. Not even necessarily that Gavin is a good kisser—Connor doesn’t really know what that means. He doesn’t have enough experience. He doesn’t have _any_ experience. This is new. This is different.

It’s—

Over too quickly.

“Connor?”

It’s just his name but he knows it’s a different question. _Is it okay? Is it working?_

“Do it again,” Connor replies.

Gavin offers a fraction of a smile before he glances over his shoulder. The light is green. They should be moving across the street with the others. But there is still fear in his stomach and it takes more than just a green light to feel safe crossing a street.

“We should go…” he trails off. “The case is important, yeah?”

Yes. It is. The job should always come first.

“Do it again,” he repeats.

And he does. The case can wait.

They can cross at the next green light.

Or the one after.

_December 18 th, 2040_

“I need to talk to you,” he says, pushing past Gavin and into the small apartment before he can be rejected. He needs this conversation to happen. He needs everything to be said and over with but—

He is caught off guard by the place. Clean and minimalistic—lacking what he had originally thought Gavin’s place would look like. He expected it to be trashed, or at least cluttered with useless things or a sink full of dishes.

But it isn’t. It’s spotless.

“Connor—”

“Y-You kissed me,” he says. He needs to focus on this. Get the words out before he runs away. Breaking the rule of _ignore, ignore, ignore._

“I—Yes.”

“And you tried to kill me.”

“…Yes.”

“And you punched me.”

The last one doesn’t get a response. When he turns to face Gavin, he sees him shrinking back against the wall, his teeth clamped over his lip hard. Hard enough to likely draw blood.

“Gavin—”

“I didn’t… think,” he says. “You were just a machine. A piece of plastic. Nothing.”

_Were._

He zeros in on that word. Concentrates on it instead of the harshness of Gavin’s words.

_Were._ Not anymore.

“I didn’t think you were real and I was frustrated and angry and just—” he sighs. “I’m always fucking pissed off all the time and I took it out on you. But you weren’t real at the time. You didn’t matter.”

“And now?”

Gavin brings a hand up, brushing away the one stray tear he wasn’t able to contain with a curled up fist like he’s furious he’s even crying, “You’re more than that. You’re—You’re everything—”

He cuts himself off.

_You’re more than that._

Markus had said the same thing.

_We’re all more than that._

“Everything?”

“E-Everything I thought you couldn’t be,” he mumbles.

Real. Alive. A living being with thoughts and emotions. Something more than just programming and following orders.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and it comes out hoarse and broken. “I fucking—I can’t say it enough. I’ll never be able to say it enough.”

Maybe.

Maybe not.

He knows Gavin is sincere. He knows that it would be easy to forgive.

It _is_ easy to forgive—

He forgave Hank. He can forgive Gavin.

 

Urban Farms of Detroit

This fall is worse than the one before.

Because he can almost save himself.

He grasps onto the ledge and tries his best and he can feel the plastic of his hands slipping against the surface, fracturing with the pressure to hold on.

And it isn’t as far of a fall, either—

When he connects against the pavement, when he feels his plastic shell shattering into a thousand pieces—

He is still _alive_ for just a moment.

Long enough to take in the damage. Long enough to catalogue and set it aside.

Long enough for, in two years, being curled up and crying and sobbing and unable to stop the screams in his throat.

_January 5 th, 2041_

They keep their distance.

The kissing by the side of the road was a mistake neither of them can afford to make again. The snow muddles thoughts. It confuses things. Makes them out to be something they aren’t. More romantic than it actually is. He knows that now.

They should just be friends. Learn to forgive and repent before it goes any further.

And they shouldn’t allow it to go any further at all, anyways.

They will end badly.

Connor keeps that on a loop in his head, _they will end badly,_ over and over again.

The pain is not worth it.

 

_February 1 st, 2041_

The two of them lay on the floor, staring up at the darkened ceiling. The light bulb flickered out an hour ago and neither of them have moved. Once they descended into darkness, their conversation took a turn. Like the shadows and the night time and the cold winter night has infected their bones.

He hasn’t outright said anything about his deaths to Gavin, but he has described it in the vaguest way he can manage.

As if floating through a galaxy and all the stars are his memories. He can see some of them twinkle and die and he knows he’s losing valuable information, but there’s nothing he can do about. Something is lost because he wasn’t good enough.

“Connor?”

His name is asked quiet and soft in the dark, breaking the silence that he had let fall over them because he knows if he goes on he will start crying and he might not be able to stop.

“Are you alright?”

He bites his lip, but the words start to tumble out anyways.

“It’s lonely there,” Connor whispers. “Nobody exists but me.”

He feels Gavin shift beside him, moving his weight so he can look from the ceiling to him. He’s sure his LED is red or yellow. Casting an unsightly glow against floorboards, showing off how much of an android he is in the dark.

“Connor…”

He wants to tell him to stop. Stop saying his name like that. Stop breathing it out quietly with every bit of concern that makes all the terrible things knotted in his chest loosen and ready to restrain him down in a fit of anxiety and nerves and tears.

“It’s terrifying.”

It’s the first time he’s said any of this out loud. The first time he has let the words spill from his mouth and the first time he has accepted how absolutely horrified he is of that place. He can’t even be glad that his time as a machine gave him a glimpse into what an afterlife might be like. All it has done is mutilate his insides until he’s been left with nothing but the fear of dying.

Death is something he never wants to experience again.

“You’re not there anymore,” Gavin says quietly, and Connor lets himself look from the ceiling to his face. Twisted with worry and concern. “I know you won’t be able to ever forget it but… you’re safe now.”

_Safe._

He doesn’t feel it unless he’s with Gavin. Which is always a strange battle inside of his head. The man that tried to kill him feels like comfort and security. It’s so stupid and so ridiculous but—

He doesn’t stop Gavin when he reaches a hand forward and rests it against his cheek. He doesn’t stop him when he wipes away the tear slowly or when he hesitates for a long moment before leaning forward and pressing their lips together.

Barely.

They haven’t kissed since the street. A forbidden act. A wall put up between them. A mess they need to sort out first.

And they have.

And they haven’t.

They spend a lot of nights talking. Gavin spilling details about his past. Connor talking about his deaths. They connect in more ways than Connor thought they would. The sound of glass breaking both brings them back to blood and death and pain. Neither of them like guns but Gavin has learned to push past his distaste for the job and Connor has learned to accept that he might never be able to hold one in his hands again without falling apart. Both of them hate the archive room.

And both of them apologize more than they need to.

Although, if Connor keeps tallies, he is sure that Gavin’s add up more than his own.

The hand at his side twitches, the need to reach up and pull Gavin in a little further. He doesn’t though. He doesn’t stop Gavin, but he knows in the back of his mind that this isn’t right.

But he kisses back, because it’s what he wants.

And it ends too quickly, just as it had before, and once they part he can recollect his thoughts. Move past the superficial desire and need for affection.

“Connor—”

“We can’t,” he whispers. “We shouldn’t.”

Gavin nods, but he doesn’t move. Connor needs him to move away. He needs space to think. He needs time to separate someone he can confide in with someone he can _like_ and maybe _love._

But he also already knows the depths of his feelings towards Gavin. He’s known since they first held hands on that roof.

“We wouldn’t work,” he tries again. “We’d—We won’t work.”

They’ll fail. They’ll stumble. They’ll fall.

They aren’t meant for one another.

So why do their hands fit together so perfectly? Why do their lips match up so well? Why does being beside Gavin feel so absolutely _righ_ t? As if he’s finally gotten something correct in his life?

“I know,” Gavin finally says and it’s Connor’s turn to nod.

_They won’t work. They won’t work. They won’t work—_

“We won’t last, and it will hurt,” he says, and he is trying to convince himself. His hand has reached up on it’s own accord, resting against Gavin’s chest, moving to his shoulder—

“I know,” he repeats.

“So we shouldn’t.”

_We shouldn’t. We shouldn’t. We shouldn’t._

His hand moves to the back of Gavin’s shoulder, upwards and tangling in his hair—

He can’t decide if he wants to pull him down. He can’t decide if he wants Gavin to kiss him again. He can picture a messy breakup. He can picture thousands of them. Tears and arguing and realizing that Connor had called how bad their relationship could be before it even started.

But he can picture how good it would be, too. How it might be worth it, in the end.

He is in trouble and he’s doomed and he knows he will likely regret whatever decision he makes here.

He hates this. He hates liking someone this much—maybe loving them—and knowing that it will likely end. It will always end. He can’t picture the two of them dying together. He can’t picture an end in which they stay together forever. It seems impossible.

Their breakup seems inevitable, and that is almost as terrifying as death. Knowing how absolutely devastated he will be.

“Connor?”

 

The Bridge

He is not scared then like he is now.

He doesn’t fear death and he doesn’t fear guns.

He is just a machine. He thinks of this logically:

A machine doesn’t possess _fear_ but it can understand the need to avoid death. It can think of it as best to keep at a distance. ~~Memories~~ Knowledge is important to protect.

And guns are just an object. A weapon. He is plastic and metal and wires and coding.

If he is destroyed, he can come back.

But in the present, when he wakes up shaking he hates himself for taking that step towards the gun, he hates himself for saying those words—

_You know you’re not going to shoot me, Lieutenant. You’re just trying to provoke a reaction._

What did he think was going to happen?

He brought this upon himself.

 

_May 2 nd, 2041_

He leans against the table with Tina, watching as she dissects a donut one piece at a time as if it needs to be torn up before it can be edible. He’s lost track of what they’re talking about. Something to do with Gavin’s cat. Connor cuts himself off abruptly, looking towards the other side of the room as Gavin steps in, tired and exhausted and like injecting coffee into his veins would be preferable over having to wait on the machine to make it.

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” Tina says, following Connor’s gaze. “You look like shit.”

“Didn’t sleep much last night.”

Connor moves his eyes to the table and Tina falls silent, the only sound in the room coming from the typing of keyboards outside and the coffee machine a few yards away. He’s lost what he was talking about with Tina. They’ve hit a dead end and he can’t think of any proper words anymore.

“Hey,” Gavin says, appearing at his side, setting down the cup of coffee on the table. “Good morning.”

Connor looks up to him, fixing his posture so he stands a little straighter, even though it makes him taller than Gavin and he knows how much Gavin hates being that bit shorter—

“Good morning,” he says, and he smiles even though he told himself he wouldn’t.

“God,” Tina says, reaching for her plate of crumbs. “You guys are disgusting.”

“We didn’t do anything—”

“Disgusting,” she repeats, walking away before Gavin can say anything else.

And Connor is thankful, because Gavin wraps his arm around his waist, takes a step closer to him.

“Sorry I kept you awake,” Connor says, feeling Gavin leave a soft kiss against his neck.

Normally, he wouldn’t say anything. But normally he wouldn’t have woken Gavin up with his nightmares. They would have been left unseen and unnoticed because Connor specializes in controlling and silencing these types of things.

And he knows Gavin’s fear of being a contributing factor to them.

“Don’t apologize, idiot,” he says, and leans up to kiss him. There is a soft movement of his lips against Connor’s. Barely noticeable, with words barely spoken.

But at work, they keep it quiet. They don’t do this often. They barely kiss. They barely stay near each other. They keep their distance and when they’re at each other’s place or out on a date they don’t have to worry about keeping their guards up.

Their relationship is not a secret.

But they don’t spend every second they can together.

So, when they do kiss, Gavin murmurs his words soft and quiet and often silences Connor before he can say them back.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

Sometimes it’s too much to handle. The reminder that he is something more. That he is _wanted_ by this man who seemed against his entire existence the moment they laid eyes on each other.

And now he is smiling against Gavin’s kiss and thinking about Tina calling them disgusting and he agrees. They’re terrible. They’re awful. They get too close to breaking their own rules.

But they are happy.

_June 30 th, 2042_

Gavin is careful with Connor—especially during sex. Like he thinks Connor might break. Gentle kisses and gentler touches and gentle words whispered at all times. A soft kiss pressed against his LED before he falls asleep, returned with one to Gavin’s scar across his nose.

He is grateful for this—the caution, the tenderness.

Because he does feel like he’s going to break sometimes.

He remembers how easily he was destroyed by the cars and the fall and the bullets. He remembers the feeling of death at all times.

So when Gavin uses these soft touches, when they are like ghosts against his skin, he is thankful. It helps him to forget when they lay like this, blanket pulled over the two of their bodies, kisses pressed gently against his neck.

“Move in with me,” Gavin whispers. Loud enough that Connor will hear him, quiet enough that if Connor ignored him, they could pretend that it was never asked.

If his answer was no. If he was unsure.

But he isn’t.

“Okay,” he replies.

Gavin buries his face in Connor’s shoulder, a dozen kisses left on the skin there before he has to turn over and let Gavin just kiss him properly. And he can feel the smile against his lips and it makes him smile and he thinks this might be the happiest moment of his life.

And he never expected a year ago to have this. He never expected to see Gavin smile so much or in a way that makes his head spin and joy flood through him. He never expected any of this.

He never expected to belong anywhere or with anyone and yet he does. When Gavin uses pet names—sarcastically or serious or with a heavy sigh—his place in this world is reaffirmed. When there is a kiss against his temple or on his lips or delicate hands pulling him back when he tries to leave the bed it reminds him that he belongs here. He belongs with Gavin.

He pauses him, a finger pressed against Gavin’s lips because he needs to say this before they get carried away.

“I love you,” he says, and he doesn’t whisper it or say it quietly, he knows it comes out bubbling with a laugh that he can’t hold back. He is giddy and happy and he wants the two of them to spend the rest of their lives together.

“You just like me for my cats,” Gavin replies, taking Connor’s hand in his, pressing his lips to his palm, his fingers, the back of his hand. “I know you and Mocha have been scheming behind my back.”

“We have. You never should’ve adopted a cat with me.”

“I know. A terrible mistake,” Gavin sighs and leans backwards. “How else am I going to test your fatherly capabilities, though?”

Connor grasps Gavin’s hand before it can fully retreat from him and he threads their fingers together, holding on a little tighter than he needs to.

“You want kids?”

Gavin’s smile falters a little bit, but his voice comes out light. Carefully crafted to sound almost like a joke, “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Connor repeats it, softening his features, wanting Gavin to know that he wants a real answer. A solid answer. He knows about Gavin’s past. He knows about the terrible childhood he endured. He knows how well he acts with kids and how often he babies the cats as if they’re infants.

He knows that when Gavin nods to him, when the rest of his smile falls away, that it’s a true want.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Gavin asks. “You don’t have to—”

“I like kids,” he says, even though he is terrible around them. Even though he wasn’t built with the ability to take care of them or understand their wants or needs.

But he wasn’t built with the ability to fall in love, either. He was built to hunt down deviants.

And he can learn.

“You’ll have to marry me first,” Connor says. “We can’t have children out of wedlock.”

“No,” Gavin shakes his head. “That’s far too scandalous.”

“The whole town would be talking about it. We’d be shunned.”

“No,” he leans back down again, pressing a kiss against his forehead, against his lips. “We can’t have that.”

They could continue this—the silly banter. He’d love for it to continue. But Gavin’s hands are delicate and tender and careful and his thoughts start to slip away and all he can think is _Gavin, Gavin, Gavin._

 

Stratford Tower

He doesn’t want to be on the roof. He steps out into the sun and the sky and feels the wind and the cold and he knows instantaneously that he cannot be here. The ledge in the distance only reminds him of how high up he is, how far he has to fall.

So he turns and he leaves and he pretends that the place behind him on the way down the steps doesn’t exist.

And he doesn’t know that in a few more minutes he will be crawling across the floor to get his Thirium regulator back in his chest in an attempt to stay alive, and he doesn’t know that right after he will be stepping in front of Hank and getting bullets loaded into his chest. He doesn’t know that he will die bleeding out on the ground and thinking of only that he has failed again.

 

_April 18 th, 2043_

Connor doesn’t work at the DPD anymore. He can’t do it. He can’t walk into the station and see guns and the interrogation room and not think about how many times he has had a bullet in his skull or how much blood he must have spilled.

He quits.

He takes a job at a flower shop. He is comforted by the sight of peonies and roses and hydrangeas. They bring little pieces of joy to him as puts together his bouquets, assembling color schemes carefully thought out, sending them out with little notes of _I love you_ or _I miss you._

And he likes it even more when he comes into work one day and his work space is filled with blues and reds. Cluttered full of flowers and petals and vases.

Except one spot.

A small section cleared out with a tiny black box.

The smile on his face comes across quick as he steps forward, reaching out to it slowly, picking it up carefully. It opens to reveal the ring inside, sitting carefully and steady in its spot.

“Connor?”

He turns to the door, looking to where Gavin has leaned against the jamb. He is suddenly struck by how much he loves him. Connor is always in a constant state of awareness of his feelings—he always knows that the love he feels for Gavin has a terrifying depth that makes him spend day after day smiling and thankful to whoever has gotten them here.

But the way he looks now, with the tiny smile on his face, his arms folded and his head tilted—

There isn’t any other possibility. He knows that. They will always find each other. Every version of them is always going to end up here.

“What’s that?” Gavin asks, looking towards the box, smiling with that stupid, _stupid_ smile. “You planning on proposing to me?”

Connor holds the box delicately, the ring inside—Gavin’s ring, his ring—

“Yes,” he settles on, deciding to play along with Gavin’s little joke. “I was.”

“Well,” he shrugs. “You gotta do it properly then.”

He can hear the slight tremble in Gavin’s voice. The little undercurrent of anxiety. That’s why he’s making a joke out of this. Pretending that it’s Connor instead of him. He’s scared that Connor would say no.

And part of him just wants to walk over to him and kiss him and reassure him that _yes, of course, absolutely_ he would marry Gavin.

But he also wants to be the one to ask. He had been thinking about it for months now. Every night before they went to bed and he’d rest his head against Gavin’s heart and listen to the soft beat of it. _Alive. Alive. Alive._

Connor takes a step forward, can feel the need and the want to blush like a human at how ridiculous it is to kneel in front of someone like this, at the knowing what the answer would be—

“Gavin Reed,” he says, saying it slowly, carefully, deliberately. “Would you marry me?”

There’s a moment when Gavin’s smile falls, when it takes him a second to pull it back up again and it is more real and genuine than before—not hiding behind a mischievous plan.

“Yes,” he whispers. “Wait—”

He walks forward, large steps to get there quicker. For a moment, Connor thinks he’s going to pull him up from the ground but instead he kneels, steals the box from his hand. There is a moment when Connor wants to hold onto it, keep Gavin from ripping it out of his grasp, but he lets it go and instantly feels like he needs to take it back.

“Gavin—”

“I shouldn’t of—” he pauses. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Said yes?”

“No—” he laughs. “Fuck no. I meant that. I shouldn’t have made you ask it.”

“You didn’t _make_ me do anything.”

“Don’t get technical,” he says, and he must see Connor’s face because he quickly adds, “And don’t apologize.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Good. Now—” he sighs and holds the box towards him. “Would _you,_ Connor, marry me?”

“You already know the answer.”

“But I want to hear you say it.”

Connor presses his lips together, rests his hands on either side of Gavin’s face, and it takes all of his will power not to just answer him with a hundred kisses. _I want to hear you say it._ Then he will.

“Yes,” he says, and he doesn’t know why his voice is shaking. It shouldn’t be shaking, but he thinks he might cry. He can feel it threatening its way up from where it resides in the back of his heart. “I will absolutely marry you, my stupid, ridiculous, amazing detective.”

Gavin looks like he wants to say something. His lips part just barely and he looks at Connor with a faint smile that keeps fading. It’s almost like disbelief, like he didn’t really think Connor would say yes.

Connor starts to find the words, something that could fit this moment but they fall away and he’s left with absolutely nothing and he’s grateful that Gavin leans forward and kisses him instead. He can’t think of the right words. He can’t think of any. He’s glad that he can just have this instead.

 

November 12th, 2044

It’s quiet and strange in the empty room, but Connor stands on his own, his head tilted as he surveys the space. There are scratches in the floorboards from where furniture has been moved repeatedly throughout the years. Some of the paint on the walls has started to peel off. The closet in the corner has a message written on one of the walls, small and tiny and up towards the top, from the past owners to the new ones.

_The new ones._

Him and Gavin.

The thought brings a smile to his face. _A house._ A house with his husband.  _His husband._ He doesn’t want to ever get used to saying it because every time he does, it brings the feeling of butterflies fluttering their wings against his ribs and it is always enough to make him smile like an absolute idiot.

“Hey.”

Connor turns, finding Gavin in the doorway. He knows he’s been there for a while. Watching Connor watch the room. But he steps closer now, circling an arm around his waist, leaning up to kiss him.

“You figure out what you want to do with the space yet?”

He sighs and looks back over, trying to picture the furniture in their proper places, “Maybe a library. We could line that wall with shelves. Put a chair or a sofa in front of the window. We’d need some extra lights. It gets a little dark in here at night. Or…”

“Or?”

“Right there,” Connor says, pointing towards a corner, pulling Gavin a little closer to him with his other arm. “It would be quite a good spot for a crib. Or a bed if we adopt an older kid. We could put a mobile above it, and a rocking chair over there.”

“You want a nursery?”

“Do you?” Connor asks, looking back to him.

He hasn’t forgotten their conversation about kids a few years back. He knows Gavin wants them. He knows Gavin knows that Connor wouldn’t mind them. But it’s been a long time and they haven’t talked about it recently. It’s almost as if their previous conversation has faded off into a surreal dream. Neither of them bringing it up again because bringing it up again means thinking about it a bit more seriously.

But they can afford more seriously now.

Gavin’s lips quirk into a smile and he nods, leaning forward to kiss him again. He pauses just before and whispers something that Connor can barely make out. A _yes,_ maybe. An _of course,_ possibly. It doesn’t really matter the specifics. It’s the general idea of the answer.

Gavin wants a kid. Something other than the cats that runs their way through the house and knock down picture frames and chews on plants when they’re asleep and not watching them more carefully.

_A kid._

A kid with his husband in their house.

He had never thought it quite a possibility. Before it was just a joke made in the dark, and now it’s something else. Something he wants and could even have. But it’s perfect and it sounds right and it fits exactly where there seems to be the perfect place for it.

And he wants it. He does. He wants to see Gavin holding a baby and he wants to hear Gavin singing nursery rhymes and reading stories and tucking a kid in at night. He wants to pack lunches and see the child off to school and he wants to see the space on their wall fill up with yearbook photos as each year goes by.

_A kid with his husband in their house._

 

Kamski’s House

He could have killed her.

_He should have killed her._

That’s what Amanda tells him. That’s what is fitting right inside of his codes.

Kill the girl and get the necessary information—

But she is innocent. She didn’t do anything wrong. She is—

Just an android.

_He should have killed her._

He could have killed her.

He didn’t. He couldn’t.

He has the physical capacity for it. Of course he does. A gun and a hand with which to hold it. Fingers to pull the trigger. Loaded with a bullet that would have destroyed her completely. People whispering in his ear to do it. _Kill her, kill her, kill her._

Except they don’t say _kill_ they say _destroy,_ they say _shoot_ because she is not _alive_. She is not a _person_. She is not even a _she_.

But _she is._

And he cannot pull the trigger. He can’t. He doesn’t have the emotional ability for it even when he is simply a machine, when he is teetering on the edge of deviancy.

How many times has he died? How many times has he had to jump from one body to the next? He knows how awful it is and he can’t bare the thought of this thing—this girl—having to suffer from that.

Even if she wouldn’t survive. Even if she wouldn’t be able to leap from here to the next RT600 model that Kamski had available.

Just the thought of killing so senselessly is _wrong._

It doesn’t matter what information he can get from Kamski.

There has to be a better way.

 

_July 39 th, 2047_

He wakes up and he can’t breathe. He doesn’t _need_ to breathe. He’s just an android. These lungs aren’t real, but the panic it causes _is_. He’s reaching out blindly, grasping for something to ground him in the present, needing something to tell him he doesn’t have a gun pointed at his head or one in his hands and that there aren’t bullets being fired off because it’s all he can hear—

Gunshots over and over again. The HK400 and Hank and the JB300 and himself—

Aiming it at the Tracis. Aiming it at the RT600.

Even Daniel. Pointed at him, threatening and yelling and—

Maybe Connor didn’t die from being shot, maybe he fell over the edge. But he remembers being surrounded by guns in that apartment. He remembers being surrounded by them at the station.

And he remembers each and every time Gavin held it, too, and the sound it made when it went off and hit metal and dented and broke through—

“Connor?”

“I’m—” he holds onto Gavin, adjusts his eyes so he can see better in the dark. He knows his LED must be red. Gavin told him once that it happens after nightmares. Just a single time. After that, after seeing the look on Connor’s face, he never mentioned it again. It’s not as if talking about the color of a light would solve his problems, it’s far deeper than that.

But Gavin still brings a hand up, still rests against his temple for a moment like it will help ease it away. It doesn’t. Gavin is comforting and good and he offers the best kinds of distractions but sometimes the hurt is too much to take away. Love is a mighty thing but it isn’t all powerful and it doesn’t solve everything, as much as Connor wishes it could.

“I love you,” Connor whispers anyways, pulling him closer, burying his face as best as he can into Gavin’s shoulder, shutting his eyes tight. “I’m sorry I’m so broken.”

“You’re not broken,” Gavin replies, wrapping his arms around him tightly. “Don’t think that. You aren’t. Your problems don’t make you broken.”

No. Maybe not.

But it’s how he feels.

Wrong and twisted and like the pieces inside of him still don’t line up quite right.

It’s been nine years since he met Gavin. It’s been nearly seven since they got together. And Gavin might have held a gun to his head but he still remains the safest place on earth for him. Even with the remnants of a nightmare dripping away and the fear still holding onto him and the problem never, ever leaving even when he thinks it’s about to finally give him some rest—

Gavin is safety and comfort.

“I didn’t scream, did I?” _I didn’t wake the baby, did I?_

“No, it’s okay.” _He’s still asleep. Don’t worry._

A kiss to the top of his head, a blanket pulled back tight around them.

Gavin will likely fall asleep and Connor will likely stay awake until the sun rises or he can safely retreat from the bed and find something to make himself productive. But for now, for the few minutes or the few hours before that happens, he makes sure that his thoughts are focused on Gavin.

The beat of his very alive heart. The sound of his breath as he inhales and exhales. The very real, very solid body next to his.

His detective. His husband. His safe keeper.

His. His. _His_.

 

_December 25 th, 2053_

Hospitals don’t bother him. There’s nothing about them that bother Connor. Not really. It’s a place to get better. A place to be well. Babies are born and lives are saved. There is always the connotation of the exact opposite, but he can’t focus on that right now.

He is jittery and anxious and he paces back and forth across the space until he has to force himself to sit down and try and push his restlessness onto something else. But he doesn’t have his coin. It’s the first time he’s ever forgotten it. He’s so used to having it in his pocket, using it to help focus his thoughts on something other than the sound of traffic or guns or the terrifying height of a building despite being on solid ground. He doesn’t always rely on it. Most days he doesn’t need it anymore. Even on the days without Gavin by his side. It’s started to fade. Not the memories. The memories are as vivid as when it first happened.

They just torture him a little less often.

But he doesn’t have the coin now and he needs it. He needs to distract himself from the present. He needs something to keep his nerves in check so he doesn’t feel so close to breaking apart—

“Mr. Reed?”

Connor stands slowly, looking towards the doctor amongst all the others. His chest is constricting. Tightening further and further and if were human he would likely be dead from the pain that is flooding through him.

When he was here before, the doctor took him to a room to look through glass and pointed out the little baby sleeping soundlessly in his bed with the others. He watched as Gavin held him close to his chest like the fragile creature that he was. So careful not to break him. So careful to keep him safe. They’d only officially been the parents of that boy for a few minutes and they both exchanged a look that said they would absolutely, certainly, die for him. In a heartbeat. No second thoughts. No need for second thoughts.

How thankful Connor is now that he’s at the house with Tina instead of here.

“Would you please come with me so we can speak privately?”

_Privately._

He nods, and he knows he is shaking beyond his own control. He knows what this means. He knows the look the doctor gave him. He knows what he’s going to be told.

_Gavin’s gone._

 

The Archive Room

He is tired of dying. He is tired of being shot in the head or falling off roofs or getting run over by cars.

He doesn’t let Gavin win the fight because of that.

He knows it is irrational. He knows he shouldn’t be thinking this way. He knows it is ridiculous for a machine to think of himself as capable of dying when he isn’t. But it is the only word he knows that fits.

Because on the other side, in the in-between here and his next body, it feels like death. A dark and cold and empty space. He is like a lost child wandering through the stars except they have all died and his feet aren’t quite touching solid ground and he _hates_ it.

So he doesn’t let Gavin win.

And it leaves him shaking and vulnerable and half ready to cry even though he is a _machine_ and _machines don’t feel._

But he is finally good enough in the eyes of CyberLife, isn’t he? He finally kept a body from being destroyed. He finally succeeded in some part of his mission. He saved them the money they’d lose from building another RK800 and the time it would take to transfer his consciousness and the absolute terrifying aspect of losing another piece of himself and his memories and his infinite knowledge.

But he isn’t happy.

He doesn’t think he ever will be.

Even as a machine, knowing he hates and knowing he is upset by this, _happiness_ does not seem to be something he’d be capable of feeling even if he was a deviant.

 

_December 22 nd, 2054_

He wakes up before the others, even though he doesn’t necessarily sleep very much at all. It is always a struggle falling asleep, staying asleep. Somehow, it is also always a struggle to get out of bed. Connor can lay there for two extra hours, staring at the wall thinking of how much his biocomponents need more rest, how much he just needs to shut down for a few more hours. But he can never quite make the slip back into the world of dreams again. It is always outside of his grasp.

His morning is spent cleaning. Little pieces and bits throughout the house. Things no one else might notice except Gavin. He straightens a frame in the hallway, he wipes dust from the top of a shelf, he adjusts the Christmas lights hanging lopsided on the tree. He even bends down and fixes the stack of boxes underneath so that there is room for the presents still hidden in his closet.

And then, he makes breakfast. Eggs and bacon and hash browns and toast. The smell of coffee fills the kitchen like it always does and he watches the machine fill the mug up and he can’t help but think of how much his head hurts right now. He wishes Gavin were behind him, pressing kisses against his shoulder, against his neck, mumbling a good morning to him.

Instead, he just has the coffee.

After all these years, he can accept his own deaths. He can deal with them.

But this one?

It is impossible.

_October 16 th, 2045_

He doesn’t know in seven years, seventy days, five hours, fifteen minutes and twenty-six seconds Gavin Reed will be dead. He doesn’t know in seven years, forty-eight days, one hour, five minutes and eighteen seconds that he will have another baby in his arms without the help of Gavin to teach him all the the ways to take care of her because they had thought they were ready for another. Because they hadn’t expected Gavin to die and for Connor to be left alone.

He doesn’t know that he will wake up morning after morning and make sure the house is spotless and perfect like Gavin would have wanted it, with the smell of coffee brewing and breakfast cooking.

How could he?

Connor can’t tell the future.

He wouldn’t be able to know that the roads would be so terrible that Christmas morning or that Gavin would be driving too fast because they needed one more package of tape to finish up the presents unwrapped in the back of Connor’s closet.

He wouldn’t be able to know that the watch Gavin left on the bedside table when he was too tired to put it on when he woke would stay on Connor’s wrist until their son was old enough for him to pass it on and trust it entirely to his care, or that he would do the same with the old leather jacket his daughter would grow fond of.

He wouldn’t be able to know that eventually his children would die and his grand children would die and the line would die out shortly after. His wedding ring would be added onto a chain and two others would join it but not until much, much longer. And eventually his body wouldn’t be able to hold on any longer, even with all the advances in technology or the replacements he could buy for faulty biocomponents.

But right now, with a little Elijah Hank Reed in his arms and a Gavin mumbling out a broken nursery rhyme and the soft sound of a stereo playing in the distance—

He is happy.

He has a family. He has a son and a husband and someday it will break but he will be able to mend it again and he will be able to move past it.

But he has a _life._

It has always felt so fragile and flimsy but he has one now, and he never wants to let go of it.

“Connor?” Gavin says suddenly. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re crying.”

He blinks, shifting the babies weight so he can have a free hand to wipe away the tears on his cheeks, almost surprised to find them there.

“S-sorry,” he mumbles. “Sorry.”

“Con…”

“I think…” he trails off and looks back to Gavin, and even with that worried expression on his face, Connor can’t help but smile. “I think I’m just really happy.”

And for now, he is.

Because he doesn’t know about the future and he has started to accept the past.

But he is happy enough to cry and he’s never felt that in his entire life. He has the luck of not knowing the future and he can only think of how grateful he is that he kissed Gavin in the dark and trusted that even with a bad ending he can appreciate the good lying at the beginning and taking up the middle.

**Author's Note:**

> this got out of hand. poor boys.
> 
> [hmu on my tumblr](https://norchloe.tumblr.com/) | music;  
> Paralyzed - NF (instrumental)  
> Michigan - The Milk Carton Kids  
> Looking Too Closely - Fink


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